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Wednesday, 13 August 2014

I'm not sure where these Chukars came from, but they are in the wild and for the purposes of my Americas year of birding, I consider them countable for my list. The biggest obstical to overcome was findng them a couple of days after they were reported on OntBirds. The location was pretty easy to find, and when I arrived there were two birds that could have been female Chuckars or juvinile Wild Turkeys making their way through the tall vegitation at the bottom of a hill. Though I got a couple of photos, they were pretty inconclusive.

I kept walking along the path to the north and eventually came to a corner, with a field in the distance and as I turned, a bird flushed, and it was unmistakable. A football shaped, chunky quail like bird flew across the path and into the high vegitation. I could clearly see the black mask across the eye, but it was gone before I could even think of taking a photo. Still it was the Chukar, and a new bird for the ABA Life List: 624 and new for the year: 502.

I went back today and finally got a photo of a pair of them in a storm retention pond. The pond is at the bottom of an embankment at about a 20 degree slope, which is exaclty the environment Chukars like to be in. Perhaps there are females around and the birds will breed in the area, giving the new neighborhood a fine exotic bird to see as people walk the path. Or, as many people fond of game birds are wont to do, maybe just good eats.

Tuesday, 5 August 2014

Was nice to get some birding in on a recent trip to Florida and add enough birds to pass 500 species for the year, with the addition of 4 new species, Purple Swamphen, Monk Parakeet, Shiny Cowbird and 501: a Burrowing Owl I had missed on two other trips to Powerline Rd, north of Tampa. No photo of the owl, as it was on a post way out in a farmer's field and by the time I got the scope on it for a digiscoping shot, it flew off into the tall grass.